Maxwell's Chain Read online

  ‘Not on my list,’ said Hall. ‘Just write “check”.’

  Eventually, the system started to work and Hall and Kavanagh ticked, crossed and silently cursed the evening away, while Mrs Hall’s hedgehogs did without their bread and milk and Kavanagh’s house mates had a small celebration, as they always did when he was working late.

  Maxwell and Jacquie stood blinking in the foyer. They enjoyed going to the cinema most in the winter. Coming out of the cosy darkness to a bright sunlit evening, the magic passed quickly; coming out to a cold, dark evening, better still, a snowy one, the special occasion feeling lingered all the way home. And Peter Maxwell could still remember, even if Jacquie could not, hacking his way along the pavements of his childhood – all the three musketeers rolled into one; and one for all.

  Jacquie gave Maxwell a squeeze. ‘That was a lovely idea, Max,’ she said, leaning up to kiss him. ‘Just what I needed.’

  Smiling, he kissed her back. ‘Everyone needs a good laugh now and again,’ he said. ‘But I can’t think of two people who need it more than a teacher and a woman policeman.’

  She leant against him and heard a crackling from his pocket. ‘What’s this?’ she said, delving.

  ‘That? Oh, nothing. Jesson models or some such nonsense,’ he said, clamping his hand over it, trapping hers. ‘Tracking the untrackable. Just school stuff.’

  ‘You haven’t been at school today,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t there when we set out, because I had my hand in that pocket after a hankie, remember?’ Not for nothing was Jacquie Carpenter a signed-up member of the CID. She’d already been kicked out of the KGB for being too nosy.

  ‘Yes, my little snotty one. How is that cold?’ Solicitousness could often win the day. It was tantamount to changing the subject.

  ‘I don’t have a cold,’ she said. ‘The hankie was to wipe the seagull poo off my car door handle. What is it, Max?’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘No scenes in front of what appears to be the whole of Year Ten.’ A million eyes were watching from the queue to see what the mad old sod was going to do next. With the school closed – they hoped forever – they had to get their fix of embarrassing adult behaviour from somewhere else, and this was as good as anywhere. Any minute now, the mobile phones would be out, taking illicit pictures to be beamed around the chat rooms of the world. And the men in black from the General Teaching Council would come calling, as unexpected as the Spanish Inquisition. ‘If you must know…’ he looked round furtively, ‘…it’s a copy of what Henry was here for.’

  ‘What?’ she hissed. ‘What are your limits, Max? That’s police business. You’ve no right.’

  ‘Well, you’d have found out tomorrow.’

  ‘Precisely,’ she said coldly. ‘I would have found out tomorrow. Now, I’m going to find out tonight. Give it to me.’ She held out her hand, like a junior school teacher waiting for half chewed gum. ‘I shan’t move until I have it, Max, so let’s not make a scene.’

  Brain whirling with half formed plans, he handed it over. As she stalked away he watched her go. His eyes narrowed and he made a small bet with himself. Before the night was out, he would know who was on that list. Before the week was out, he would know who the victim was. Before the weekend was over, Jacquie, courtesy of the little grey cells of Peter Maxwell, would have the murderer behind bars. He rubbed his hands together and did a small, internal jig, not unlike the famous footage of the Führer, elated on the patio of the Berghof, because the Wehrmacht had kicked French arse yet again. Jacquie Carpenter, you just don’t know how lucky you are, he thought. A feather in your cap is about to be handed to you on a plate. Only at moments like these did Peter Maxwell allow his metaphors to become entangled. He broke into a reasonably dignified trot to catch her up, scarf streaming in the wind like a latter day Isadora Duncan. The queue slumped back into torpor. The first section of the night’s entertainment was over. Peter Maxwell had left the building.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jacquie parked the car with a flourish and went up the drive ahead of her Dearly Beloved, demoted temporarily to Him. She put a brave face on it for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, as she couldn’t help but think of the Troubridge sisters, shepherding them downstairs with twitterings and hyperbole, while Maxwell checked the boy and the Light Brigade, just for good measure. She agreed that Nolan was a dear little boy, handsome, bright and loving, but Araminta’s assertion that he was destined to be king seemed a little unlikely to be accurate. Prime Minister, certainly. That she could imagine. She paused outside the sitting room door to rearrange her expression. Give Maxwell an inch and he would take an ell.

  ‘Seen the ladies back home?’ he asked. ‘To the door? Don’t want them going missing again, do we?’

  ‘Stop it, Max,’ she said. ‘Stop trying to soft soap me. You’re not seeing that piece of paper and that’s the end of it. Do the cocoa, if you want some and either watch TV, model or have an early night. There is positively no point in hanging round me. I shall be in the study.’ And out she went.

  Maxwell sat still for a moment, then caught the jaundiced eye of Metternich, sprawled out on the sofa. A faint odour of pilchard tainted the air and the huge beast looked, if possible, even more smug than usual. Metternich had often given Mrs Troubridge little unexpected gifts, which, to his distress, had not always met with her approval, if the screams were any guide. But Miss Troubridge, the one who had made Metternich want to close one eye to help with the focusing, had been very appreciative of his purr, his handsomeness and his thick and lustrous coat. The pilchards had just been the icing on the cake. And to him a metaphor was surely there to be mixed. He was full and happy and ready for any meanderings Maxwell wanted to throw at him.

  ‘So, Count,’ Maxwell began, sprawling on the chair opposite in as near to a postural echo as someone of a different species could manage. The cat smiled, as only cats can, pouching his cheeks and narrowing his eyes. ‘What names are on that list? And is the murderer’s name there, or the murderee? Both? Or, for goodness’ sake, neither? It’s the List of Adrian Messenger all over again. Only totally different. She might have been wearing someone else’s coat. Or have been put in it. Remember what happened to dear old Edgar Allen Poe.’ Metternich didn’t, but he wasn’t giving the old duffer the satisfaction of admitting it. He started to get up, then subsided. ‘Oh, Metternich, go and get it, will you? She’d probably give it to you, no messing. As far as I can see it, we are looking for Lara Kent’s stepfather’s name, or anyone they could find from Lara Kent’s phone. Also, it could be anyone connected with the Lunts. The Blackwells. Someone who had once bought chips or a camera. The whole population of southern England, in fact.’ He looked at the cat, stretched full length and dozing off. He poked him in the soft bit just under his arm. ‘Don’t go to sleep when I’m talking to you. I need ideas. I need…’

  The door flew back on its hinges and Jacquie stood there, the list screwed up in her fist. ‘Max,’ she said. ‘You must see this.’

  He turned his head away. ‘Must I?’ he said, in his hurt voice. ‘Shouldn’t you discuss it with Henry first?’ He was bridling better than Kenneth Williams.

  ‘I’m phoning Henry in a minute. For now, you must see this.’ She thrust the piece of paper under his nose.

  He pushed it away. ‘Not so near! You know my arms are too short for my eyes.’ He groped for his newspaper reading glasses, shoved down the side of the chair and smoothed out the paper. ‘Hmmm… Mrs Smith. I don’t think so! N Leopold. Unusual name for Leighford. More suited to the Belgian Congo. Hmmm…’ He sat up straight. ‘Adair plus one! Blackwell plus one! M Crown. No plus one – that’s odd. Oh God, Jacquie!’ He looked up into her eyes. ‘Dierdre Lessing. Also not plus one.’ He remembered the police description. ‘A lady of a certain age. You don’t think…’

  ‘I hope not, Max. We’ve been lucky once. Let’s hope it’s our week to be lucky again.’

  Maxwell sat thunderstruck. It didn’t have to be Dierdre. In fact, it would be easy to
check if it was Dierdre. He picked up his little black book of school numbers, also stashed down the side of the chair. He dialled. No reply. But that meant nothing. Dierdre filled her leisure time with the mad absorption of a woman who didn’t want to think too much. She was probably out, crown green bowling, potting, watercolouring…something improving at Leighford Tech. He put the phone down slowly and got up.

  ‘Ring Henry, Jacquie. We need to check this. And also the fact that Gregory Adair was there. Dierdre has had problems with him for a while. Apparently she has seen him around with someone she feels is inappropriate and…well, seeing their names together like this on the same list, it makes me wonder.’

  ‘Mike Crown is there too,’ Jacquie reminded him.

  ‘And probably, further down the list, a Mr R Herring. Before we get too far into this, let’s get an ID on the victim. Then we might well have another suspect who fits the frame much better.’

  Jacquie looked into his eyes, often so flippant but now deadly serious. She flipped out her phone and touched one number. She looked up. ‘It’s ringing,’ she mouthed. Then, ‘Guv? Hello, it’s Jacquie. Umm…’ she looked up at Maxwell and shrugged, apologising in advance. ‘Well, the fact is, guv, Max has been a bit naughty.’

  The phone twittered angrily.

  ‘No, no. He’s here, not snooping about. He did that earlier this evening.’

  More twittering and Maxwell was sure he heard the word ‘list’.

  ‘Yes, guv, as a matter of fact, he did get the list. Oh? Of course, if you’d like to, you’re more than welcome. When we see you, then. Bye.’

  Maxwell didn’t need to have the giant intellect he in fact possessed to know what was happening next. ‘He’s coming here?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently, he was about to ring. He thinks you might be able to help the police with their inquiries. In the nicest possible way, of course.’

  ‘Don’t worry about setting my mind at rest. I haven’t always helped them in the nicest possible way. It’s sometimes got quite nasty. And sometimes, you’ve been the nasty policeman!’

  She had no answer. In the past, sometimes she had had to be. But somehow, she felt that the DCI would not be a nasty policeman either this time. Henry Hall had been touched by this case as she had never seen him touched before. He had shown a human side she had always suspected was there, but had never been allowed to witness. His boys had just got to the age when they were only dropping in these days, busy with their own lives, their own problems. She had a baby, totally trusting and dependent on her. Was there something about being at these extreme ends of the parenting curve that made them see each other in another light? And made them want to weep for the two dead youngsters, on the edge of the society most people inhabited?

  She went to sit on Maxwell’s lap and slid into her favourite place, tucked between him and the edge of the big armchair. His arm was round her and his cheek on her head. Everything was all right when she was curled into the curve of this man. And he felt safe too, with the warm, scented reality of her pressing against his side. They both could cope, like this. Something which had been bothering Maxwell rose in his mind and he turned his head to speak.

  ‘Jacquie?’

  He sounded so serious that she pressed herself against the arm of the chair to twist round and look into his face. ‘What?’ Her heart felt cold and heavy. He was about to say something to rock her world and she wasn’t sure what it could be.

  ‘Will…?’ The bell sounded. She hopped off his lap.

  ‘That will be Henry,’ she said and rushed off down the stairs. ‘He didn’t waste any time.’

  ‘That will always be Henry,’ Maxwell muttered, getting up and putting on his ‘welcome Henry’ face. ‘Come on, Count,’ he said to the cat. ‘Move yourself. Visitors. Either smarm around the ankles or go for the jugular. Your call.’

  The animal looked round lazily, focused on Hall as he came into the room and subsided again. As long as it wasn’t those two mad old biddies who made his eyes go funny, he didn’t care who it was. As a gesture, he tucked one leg up a bit. He didn’t fancy Hall’s ankles after all and the man’s jugular seemed a hell of a way above cat level of a February night.

  Maxwell stepped forward. ‘Come in, Henry,’ he said, smiling. ‘Take a seat. Just move the cat.’

  The room held its breath. Just move the cat? Hall sat gingerly alongside the huge black and white thing and then, to everyone’s amazement, not least Metternich’s, the animal began to purr and instead of clawing Hall’s leg off, just leant against it and went back to sleep.

  ‘Well, there you go,’ Hall said. ‘Cats don’t usually like me much.’

  ‘That will explain it, then,’ said Jacquie, folding herself onto a stool at the side of Maxwell’s chair. ‘Metternich isn’t really a cat, in the normal way. He’s…well, he’s sort of Max’s familiar, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ Maxwell said, sitting. ‘I always thought I was his. Greddigut, Pyewackett, Pecke-in-the Crown all rolled into one.’

  That’s enough small talk, thought Henry Hall. He had wasted his usual weekly ration on this man already tonight. Business now. ‘I understand you have the list,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right, guv,’ Jacquie said. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It may save time. I’ve been working on it with Alan Kavanagh, but to be honest, it hasn’t got me far. I suppose all this evening has done has given me a serious aversion to sardines. Sorry.’ He looked down at the cat and was rewarded with a lordly nod. ‘Do you have your copy? I have a spare.’

  ‘That would be useful,’ Maxwell said. ‘Then we can all have one.’

  Hall handed the piece of paper over and Jacquie smoothed hers out.

  ‘Right, then. There are some names we can immediately discount. Do you agree?’ He looked up at them from his notes.

  ‘Yes,’ Maxwell said. ‘Mrs Smith, for one.’

  ‘A real Mrs Smith, in fact. I rang her. She enjoys Hugh Grant films and never misses, apparently.’

  ‘Bless,’ Jacquie breathed. ‘N Leopold?’

  ‘I’ve tried the number but there’s no reply. It is a mobile and I suspect pay-as-you-go, as they don’t usually have voicemail and this just rang until it cut off.’

  ‘Is there any way to trace the number?’ Maxwell asked. The niceties of mobile phone tariffs were a closed book to him.

  ‘There may be. I’ve put Alan Kavanagh on it for first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Leopold is a bit of an unusual name. Is he in the phonebook?’ Maxwell was still a great believer in the telephone directory. And cheque books, blue bags of salt in crisp packets and the thud of planes as they crashed through the sound barrier.

  ‘No. Nor on the voting register. He could be just a visitor to town, I suppose.’ Hall sounded doubtful and it was true that Leighford had little to offer the off-season visitor except ice cold winds off the sea and a firmly closed outdoor swimming pool. Perhaps some writer looking for local colour. After all, it had worked for John Fowles.

  ‘Then we come to the names we know,’ Jacquie said, moving it on.

  ‘Yes, quite. Crown and Blackwell. Quite a coincidence,’ Hall said.

  Maxwell and Jacquie exchanged glances. ‘And more than that,’ Maxwell said. ‘We have Gregory Adair, an NQT at Leighford High School, plus one, who could be the girlfriend of whom he speaks but whom no one has ever met. And Dierdre Lessing, a lady of a certain age who also works at Leighford High School and who has complained to me of Adair’s personal lifestyle choices, that is, he is knocking about with people who she thinks are inappropriate.’

  Hall continued to look at them, his expression unchanged.

  ‘So,’ Jacquie said, leaning forward, ‘we don’t want to think this, but we do; we think that the victim might be Dierdre Lessing.’

  ‘Murdered by this Adair?’ Hall checked. ‘Why? Because she doesn’t like his girlfriend? Isn’t that a bit thin? And anyway, how do you know she’s missing? Was she absent from school tod
ay? Was he?’

  ‘That’s the point,’ Maxwell burst out. ‘Leighford High was closed today because of huge numbers of staff absent. This bloody winter bug that’s going round. So I don’t know. And he’s really short tempered. He even lost his temper with me, and everyone knows that that isn’t a good idea. A man, I’d say, with a problem. Something to hide? Something that keeps him awake at night?’

  ‘So let me get this right.’ Henry Hall was nothing if not pedantic. He risked crossing one knee over the other, aware always of the sleeping Behemoth beside him. ‘Despite the fact that there are two names on this list which have cropped up already, you have chosen two more to be the victim and murderer of the Arundel case.’

  Maxwell beamed. ‘Got it in not many more than one, Henry.’

  ‘You are both entitled to your opinions, of course,’ said Hall, preparing to get up and leave. ‘But I think you are making the whole thing unnecessarily complicated.’

  ‘Don’t go, Henry,’ Maxwell soothed. ‘That’s just one idea. Let’s go down the rest of the list. See what else we find.’ He felt Jacquie tense against his leg.

  Hall settled back onto the sofa, with care as Metternich had encroached rather into the nice warm space he sensed Hall was about to leave for him. ‘Well, if you think…’

  ‘Henry, thinking is what I do best,’ Maxwell said and bent his head, to all appearances willingly, to the list. ‘What else do we have, then? Hmm, quite a quiet night, Monday. Ooh, look. Hall.’ He looked up, enquiringly.

  ‘My eldest son, I believe,’ Henry said tightly. ‘Girlfriend’s birthday.’

  ‘How lovely. I suppose it is too much to hope that he noticed anything.’ Maxwell was all smiles. He didn’t know the boy in that he had not gone to Leighford High; one of the very few under-twenty-fives whom Maxwell did not recognise.

  Hall in his turn was suspicious of Maxwell when he was smiling, but he decided to take the question at face value. ‘I’m afraid it is,’ he said. ‘He’s a student and not terribly observant when out with his girlfriend.’